


Centaur Keith AU

by Trytofocus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bit Gag, Bondage, Centaur AU, Gen, No Sex, Slavery, Training, centaur!Keith, dressage, non consensual boncade, non consensual grooming, non consensual haircut, non sexual bondage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28250166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trytofocus/pseuds/Trytofocus
Summary: Short twitter threads and oneshots about centaur!Keith and his life as a captive in Lotor's stables.
Kudos: 19





	1. Groomed

**Author's Note:**

> This fic doesn't have a cohesive storyline, just snippets of what I feel like writing whenever in this setting. I may put them in order as I write more for this AU but I am currently focusing on my other stories. This first chapter was originally a twitter thread so it will read a little rough, apologies in advance! 
> 
> CW for this chapter: non consensual bondage, haircut, and grooming.

They lead him to a contraption made of metal with poles and bars running on either side of him, the fit is snug between it, like a cattle corral, and every limb is tied to something so he can barely move an inch while the stable hands paw at him. 

They remove the bit gag but secure a huge leather collar on him so that he wouldn't move his head and torso as much or else risk choking. But then his mouth is free to shout at them and threaten and try to bite them as they card hands through his hair, tie it up on the top of his head, braid some of it. It sits weird and over his eyes and he hates the chills he gets from their fingers touching the back of his neck and his sensitive ears.

His hands can't even hold the bar they're tied to so he clenches them into fists and snarls and whines all the way. The stable hands don't bother shutting him up, they know the gag will be back in after they're done, so they just go through the motions all the while Keith all but dances in place where he is tied. Until he smells metal. And at first he goes very still because he thinks they brought a knife. He turns around just that little bit the collar would let him and sees that that is indeed a knife and that the hand is holding it to the back of his neck.

He panics as another hand grabs his hair and his eyes water when he pulls the turfs on the top to keep Keith still. Keith stays very still, breathing hard and terrified. They're going to kill him, he knows it they're going to cut off his head and skin him and he opens his mouth to plead but they tell him he'll bleed if he moves. It makes no sense to him when he feels the knife smoothly gliding over his scalp and the snapping sounds his hair make as it is being shaved off. 

He lets them do it without further protest out of sheer relief and shock that he wasn't in fact, being decapitated. They shave all the way up to a little above his ears, making a neat space to buckle the bit more easily without his hair getting in the way all the time. The rest is braided neatly and he is too overwhelmed to resist that final humiliation. 

They bind his hands behind his back again before he has a chance to paw at it and ruin the work, but he already makes plans to rub his head on the wall of his stable until the braid no longer pulls at the skin of his scalp so uncomfortably.

They snap the bit back in his mouth when he is distracted, the bar comes back to rest against his teeth in that horrifyingly unyielding position that prevents him from making any kind of dignified noise, or from biting people. The straps tightened over smooth, cropped hair. Without the obstruction they can see that the usual three holes is too loose on him now so they shorten it to two, earning a pained groan from the centaur, not used to the new pressure.

He waits for them to untie his neck now that the gag is in but instead watches helplessly as they all migrate towards his hindquarters. His tail is then given the same treatment as the longer hair on his head, brushed and pulled on and tightly braided. He whines from the back of his throat when a red ribbon is tied in a bow over the braid like the ones the show ponies wear. The hands stand back to admire their work and shush his protests. Even if his hands were free he wouldn't be able to undo that ridiculous thing from his tail without help. 

They untie the ropes securing his collar to the posts but keep the lead there as they take him back to his stable. He realizes it's not the right way though, he was being led to a pen. A circular training pen right at the entrance to the ranch. The collar is finally taken off and he is left there, for anyone coming and exiting the ranch to look at. The newly groomed stallion put on display.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My very first kinky art in the Voltorn fandom was the first picture [here](https://trytofocus.tumblr.com/post/176227784115/my-arts-for-the-ranch-a-centaur-sheith-au-fic-by) (yes inspired by Spirit!) which led to Ilovelocust writing a lovely fic called [The Ranch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11086134/chapters/24730017) which then inspired the rest of the illustrations in that post, and also [this one!](https://trytofocus.tumblr.com/post/174566234160/inspired-by-the-ranch-on-ao3-by-ilovelocust-keith) After some conversations with carnal_k I also drew [this](https://trytofocus.tumblr.com/post/164220180790/problem-with-centaurs-and-small-sketchbooks) and [this](https://trytofocus.tumblr.com/post/165737160760/what-happened-after-this-i-just-had-to-get-this) — which ended up inspiring this fic! 
> 
> Also go read carnal_k's fic [Bound to Break](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12603604) for more of this immaculate flavor! And also here's [one last art](https://trytofocus.tumblr.com/post/167016673305/the-sharp-nail-then-moved-to-gently-caress-keiths) for you to look at inspired by that same fic!
> 
> I am @ try_tofocus on twitter and @ trytofocus on tumblr, let me know what you think and be sure to give the other two fics the love they deserve as well if you can <3


	2. Trained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is trained in dressage by Lotor's trusted crew of handlers. 
> 
> CW for this chapter: non consensual bondage, slave training, dressage training.

Keith was a centaur of lite build and was quick on his hooves, perfect for speed and endurance. But a human came to his stall one day, made his handlers turn him this way, and that, looked into his mouth and pawed at his legs, feeling the muscles and tendons there. It took three people to hold Keith down well enough for him to brush his hands all over his hide and pick at his tail without getting his face bashed in.    
  
At the end he decided he wanted him, he wanted Keith.    
  
Keith was moved to a new stall, it was larger than his previous one, and the hands here wore a different uniform. He was relieved to be untied after the inspection but that didn’t last. Three people were by his stall a few hours later, their hands full of equipment Keith had only seen on others, from a distance. It wasn’t racing gear.    


His heart thudded in his chest as one of them came over to stand at the front bars of his new stable. She didn't look like much, but her eyes were sharp, her face calculating. She patted a holster at her side, making sure Keith could see it.

“You can either cooperate or I tranq you and wait a bit longer to do this,” she said, gesturing at something leather one of the others was holding. Later he would learn they were called ‘prayer cuffs’, going over the wrists and tying them together while also securing them to a belt at the bottom of his torso. “They will be off as soon as we’re done.”

Keith’s arms had been tied up wrist to elbow behind him for days. This break in routine allowed the blood back into his impossibly cramped and aching muscles. The bruises from the ropes will probably linger for months. The cuffs did present a more comfortable alternative, as much as it angered him that he had no say in the matter. His tail flicked harshly against the wall and he couldn't help but stomp in frustration, but begrudgingly, he let them fit him with the new restraint. A lead was clipped on between his hands and he was escorted out. 

It was too late when he realized his mistake. The lead was tied off to a sturdy bolt on the floor, preventing him from rearing up. He’d have to risk getting on his knees to undo it but even then the leather cuffs held his hands too snug to his belly. Lying down completely was of course, out of the question. He couldn’t fathom why they would want him like this, he hasn't given them any trouble yet. Although now he was starting to wish he had, when the big one, a woman with arms as thick as Keith’s legs, brought with her a saddle. 

Keith’s eyes widened. They must be joking. They wouldn’t. They were training him for racing, they were making him best his times day after day until he was too tired to stand. Racing centaurs didn’t require a jokey since this brand of fucked up human logic did recognize they had some brains to rub together unlike actual horses. Impossibly, some centaurs enjoyed it even. The thrill, the competition, the company and solidarity of others like them, the chance to socialize with their fellow prisoners. 

But riding… riding required a completely different set of components. Ideally? Mutual trust between mount and rider. Ideally? No restraints, no vocal commands, only minimal physical ones. Ideally? A mount had to have been conditioned and bonded to the style and rider from birth. Keith wasn’t in the same universe as ideal. Keith was apparently, some kind of challenge.    
  
He couldn’t help it, he pulled on what little space the lead let him maneuver and put his back hooves in the big hand’s direction. They weren’t strapping that thing onto him. Had he resisted, tranqing him would have been a problem for them, they needed him standing up for this and Keith had played right into their waiting hands. Stupid.    
  
“Oh no you don’t!” She easily sidestepped his attempts at kicking out. It immediately threw him off balance and he had to scramble not to fall. In the momentary confusion, someone grabbed his lead and yanked, hard, so Keith was forced to bend his torso forward, then there was a hand in his hair keeping him down.    
  
“I thought we agreed you’d cooperate,” she said, it was the same one from before, with the gun and the sharp words. Keith thrashed in her hold, unable to escape the vice grip, her fingernails dug into his scalp. He didn’t dignify that with a response, instead he attempted to turn his head sharply to bite her. Her hold only tightened, making him cry out. “Oh so it’s like that.”    
  
Through watering eyes Keith saw her signal a third woman, a slim, dark figure danced over at the edge of his vision and before he knew it, settled on his back. He couldn’t care less anymore whether he fell or not. It was pure instinct now. There’s no way anyone was going to ride him today. His back legs bucked and kicked out. The third woman’s infuriating presence at his back didn’t budge, as if Keith was merely uneven ground and not a thrashing, furious centaur. Hands planted firmly on his shoulders no matter how much he tried to shrug them off and something metal and smooth touched his back as she dragged it out of a pocket on her belt. He groaned when his head was pulled back, not by his hair though, something was stuck between his teeth, then tightened harshly and strapped on the back of his neck.   
  
The pressure at his back and shoulders fell away, like she was never there, and Keith stumbled as his hair was released. The bit gag had a metal protrusion going deeper into his mouth and holding down his tongue, rendering him completely mute, his words unrecognizable as they pooled in the back of his throat. He couldn’t shake it off, he could only scream and glare, panting and pulling on his cuffs as he looked around at them all. Gun girl brushed a hand over her own disheveled hair, he noted with grim satisfaction, she was also a little out of breath.   
  
“We’re going to put this saddle on you today and Ezor is going to ride you,” she said with finality, her voice betrayed a bit of spite. Ezor, the one who gagged him, stepped from behind the big one, flashing Keith a smile. She wasn’t even a little bit breathless. “She can do it bare-back too but you’re going to have to get used to the tack either way.”    
  
“And if you give us any more trouble,” the big one added, undoing a coil of what looked like black rope from a clip at her belt. No it wasn’t rope. She flicked it at the ground, making Keith’s body flinch and snap to attention at the harsh sound it made. She didn’t finish her sentence. The thought of the whip cracking on his hide made Keith’s stomach turn.    
  
\---   
  
As it happened, gun girl, or Acxa, as the others called her, was revealed to be the most practical. She had a habit of presenting Keith with a choice that wasn’t really a choice at all, making him do as she pleased with as little fuss as possible, knowing the benefits of cooperating outweighed the consequences of their sharp and efficient punishments. He still resisted. There was no chance he was going to willingly enter this life, accept this lot with no fight. Even if it was futile.    
  
They were a vicious bunch, each with their own skills. Keith learned them as one by one they saddled him, every day someone else had her turn, they all had their purpose in this supposed ‘training’.   
  
Ezor was the one they used to break in the hot ones. Those centaurs who wouldn’t let anyone stay seated on their back for more than a handful of seconds. She could ride Keith with her feet planted on his back, she could stand on her hands, or sit sideways with her legs crossed and nothing Keith would do in the ring could shake her off. Her infuriating, ever present smile and laughter, a prominent part of the routine. For an entire week, she was the only one who rode him, letting him jump and gallop and twist and stomp for hours until he couldn’t breathe anymore. When she finally called it, it was always under her control that she stepped, or back flipped, or slid off of his back, leaving him breathless and exhausted, to be led back to his stable.    
  
The big one, Zethrid, was an impossible weight to bear. Standing up she was slightly taller than Keith, the first time she climbed on his back his knees buckled under him, rolling them both into the dirt. He didn’t have time to properly recover before the whip was out and the snap snap snap cutting the air terrified him into scrambling back up. At some point, he figured out she wasn’t allowed to actually strike him, out of some backhanded concern for his appearance, but he still couldn’t control how his breath caught up in his throat every time the black snake-like part came anywhere near his hooves.    
  
She rode him hardes. At first he couldn’t stand properly after every session, having to shakily stumble back into his stall every day where he could collapse in exhaustion. But the regular exercise was already showing results a few weeks into the routine. His stamina improved, he felt healthier and stronger. They fed him better here, it wasn’t lost on him that making him show worthy was the entire point. No matter. He’d take it. Eventually it will be their own mistake to have made him stronger.    
  
Acxa was patient. While the others were content to tire Keith out for the day, she was really the one that did the breaking. She wasn’t an acrobat, or an endurance trainer, she was there to make Keith do what she wanted, even if it meant riding him slowly by the same corner twenty times until he curved his body just right on the turn.   
  
He was supposed to receive minute signals from his rider’s entire body, the way she leaned her weight slightly, the pressure at the corner of his mouth from gathering a rein, a snug leg pressed to his belly, were all meant to tell him where to go and what to do. Following patterns and shapes his hooves already wore into the dirt from countless similar passes. She never finished an exercise until Keith did exactly what she wanted him to do, the spurs on her boots a constant presence but only really forced the issue when he wasn’t following instruction.    
  
It was mind-numbing. Keith could feel himself settle into a kind of trance as she patiently made him trot ‘the number eight’ for the fifteenth time, slow, slow, curve here, bend there, stay on pattern, lean into her hands, don’t think.    
  
Don’t think.    
  
She seemed to praise him most when he got like that. Sensitive to the smallest signal, allowing her to lead him without thinking about where to go. A hand at his shoulder blade patting his hide would signal a session’s end, a release of the pressure on his bit, her weight relaxed backward and legs stretched down and away from his body.    
  
“You did good today,” she would say, and Keith would only sigh tiredly since he couldn’t answer. The bit wouldn’t be out of his mouth until it was time to untack and by then all the fight would be sipped out of his bones so he could only lie down on the hay of his stable and sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm @try_tofocus on twitter and @trytofocus on tumblr! Let me know what you think!


End file.
